“We’re being led off a cliff,” Del Bigtree, an anti-vaccine activist, told the crowd at the ‘MAGA Freedom Rally DC’ over a block of the Capitol.
“I wish I could tell you that Tony Fauci cares about your safety …” he said. “I wish I could believe that voice machines work … but none of this happens.”
The anti-vaccine message may have found a particularly receptive audience among some ardent Trump supporters, many of whom wear masks and claim that the lethality of the virus is overwhelming.
“This is marketing at a basic level of sales,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which analyzed the strategies of anti-vaccine advocates. “Conspiracy that allows you to link anything to each other if you want, because it does not require fact.”
But public health experts warn that vaccine messages now pose a unique threat to the country’s health, given the urgency for widespread coronavirus vaccination.
“One of our biggest concerns is that because people see this rhetoric against vaccine, we may not be able to reach levels of herd immunity, we really need to stop the spread of viruses,” Tara C. Smith, a professor of epidemiology, told the Kent State University, said. told CNN.
The rally at the U.S. Capitol with Bigtree, advertised as “The MAGA Health Freedom Event of the Century,” included other notable vaccine conspiracy theorists such as Mikki Willis, the filmmaker behind ‘Plandemic’, who dr. Anthony Fauci falsely suggests. director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was responsible for the creation of the coronavirus.
Bigtree, who says he is’ not anti-vaccine ‘but rather’ pro-scientific ‘and not a Republican and also not a Democrat, told CNN that he did not speak at the rally about’ Stop The Steal ‘promote or benefit from it, own message. “Wherever there is an audience, I want to convey the message that our bodies are ours. We must have control over what is injected into them,” he said.
The event was organized in part by a political action committee led by Ty and Charlene Bollinger, a couple who run websites and sell documentaries claiming to reveal ‘the truth about vaccines’ and range from $ 199 to $ 499. They also market alternative health books and other products.
The Bollingers have been working for years on what they describe as health freedom activism. But in recent months, they have tackled another issue.
Mix conspiracy theories
On November 21, the Bollingers spoke during a “Stop the Steal” march in Nashville and mixed the conspiracy theories of the election with allegations that then-elected President Joe Biden intended to enforce vaccinations.
“There’s no pandemic. It’s all BS,” Ty Bollinger told the public.
In a video posted on Charlene Bollinger said on January 4 that she was working with other organizers on the plans for the January 6 protests, including ‘Ali’ – an apparent reference to Ali Alexander, a leader of the broader ‘Stop the Steal’ movement.
Two days later, Charlene Bollinger introduced the speakers at her group’s gathering near the American Capitol, stabbed her documentaries and blew up what she calls ‘the forced vaccination against Covid, such a scam’. She also told the participants that her husband Ty was not with her because he joined the siege.
“I told him … they were storming down the Capitol, and he was looking at me and saying, ‘Should I stay here? “I knew he wanted to go. I said, ‘Honey,’ so he did, ‘she said.
Charlene Bollinger added that Ty texted her and said he was ‘outside’ the Capitol. She then prayed for the patriots inside. They’re trying to get inside the Capitol. Lord, use these people to eradicate this evil, these swamp creatures. ‘
The Bollingers did not respond to CNN’s phone calls and emails.
While bizarre allegations about a stolen election may seem unpleasant with terrifying vaccines, their union has not surprised Ahmed, of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, at recent political rallies.
Ahmed said full-time vaccine advocates are often looking for new audiences within other fringe movements with which to build alliances. And he said it is no coincidence that some of these professionals sell products such as health supplements.
“What you’re talking about are old-fashioned sellers of snake oil,” Ahmed said.
Alex Jones and InfoWars
Another promoter of the conspiracy theory for the stolen election is Alex Jones, who has long been spreading lies about vaccines and drugs in his InfoWars program. The show regularly advertises Jones’ nutritional supplements and survival products.
In recent months, he has woven in false allegations of widespread electoral interference.
On January 3 Jones referred to ‘pure evidence of electoral fraud’ just before a ‘news’ warning about ‘forced vaccinations’ and other coronavirus claims. The video stays online alongside an advertisement for ‘DNA Force Plus’ supplements. The InfoWars Store disclaims that the products “are not intended to cure, treat, prevent or alleviate any disease …”
Jones also travels to Washington and speaks at a pro-Trump rally on the eve of the Capitol siege. There he blew up what he falsely described as the “manufactured virus that Bill Gates owns.”
InfoWars did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.
Theories spread on social media
Other vaccine skeptics have promoted conspiracy theories on social media.
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, a physician, complementary sales person and author of books such as “Saying No To Vaccines,” repeatedly promoted the Washington protests on Telegram on January 6th. A January 5 report, for example, contained a “call to action” quoting the founder of the extremist military group Oath Keepers as saying, “Come to DC and STAND!” These posts alternated between her more common anti-vaccine content.
On January 5, Ali Stop, the organizer Ali Alexander, introduced Gold at a rally in Washington, reminding participants that they were not only fighting for the election, but also against ‘medical tyranny’.
Gold then takes the stage and tells the crowd, “If you do not want to take an experimental biological agent that is misleading, do not allow yourself to be forced!”
America’s Frontline Doctors said in a statement to CNN that Gold was not a political organizer and “did not participate in any incident involving violence or vandalism and that he reprimanded such activity” by others. The statement added that doctors in America’s Frontline Doctors recommend vaccines for patients, but said the organization believes more study and greater transparency regarding COVID-19 vaccines is needed.
Since the riot, she has continued to spread her message.
“You should definitely not call it the Covid-19 vaccines. The reason is, whatever you call it, it’s experimental. It’s not approved as a vaccine,” Gold said in a video posted on January 14, which featured a speech she gave at a church in Tampa, Florida, led by a pastor who appeared on Alex Jones’ show.
Smith said that when all the concerns against vaccine activists about coronavirus vaccines are placed in the larger context of scientific literature, “all of these concerns have been dwarfed.”
Although the momentum of the “Stop the Steal” movement has died down, vaccine skeptics and far-right political groups are likely to continue hearing audiences and ideas, which could lead to more public demonstrations, says Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute. for Human Rights Research and Education.
Burghart, who follows the right-wing groups, said he saw these two movements develop an increasingly symbiotic relationship during the coronavirus pandemic.
“There is a larger constituency being mobilized and they have adopted a much more destructive view of vaccines than they had before, and they have united with far-right paramilitary officials and others,” he said.
CNN’s Yahya Abou-Ghazala, Benjamin Naughton and Scott Bronstein contributed to this report.